LED lighting has become popular in the industry due to the many advantages that this technology provides. For example, LED lamps typically have a longer lifespan, pose fewer hazards, and provide increased visual appeal when compared to other lighting technologies, such as compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) or incandescent lighting technologies. The advantages provided by LED lighting have resulted in LEDs being incorporated into a variety of lighting technologies, televisions, monitors, and other applications.
It is often desirable to implement LED lamps with a dimming functionality to provide variable light output. One known technology that has been used for analog LED dimming is phase angle dimming. In phase angle dimming a portion of the ac or rectified line voltage (or as referred hereafter, the line signal) is removed. The portion which is removed can be at the beginning or at the end of each line signal. In a known example, a Triac circuit can be used to remove a beginning or end portion of each line signal (half-cycle) of alternating current (ac) power, which is known as “phase control.” By removing a portion of each half-cycle, the amount of power delivered to the load (e.g., the LED lamp) is reduced, producing a dimming effect in the light output by the lamp. In most applications, the delay in the beginning of each half-cycle is not noticeable to the human eye because the variations in the phase controlled line voltage and the variations in power delivered to the lamp occur so quickly. For example, Triac dimming circuits work especially well when used to dim incandescent light bulbs since the variations in phase angle with altered ac line voltages do not lead to an undesirable flicker effect on the output light of these types of bulbs. However, flicker may be noticed when Triac circuits are used for dimming LED lamps.
Flickering in LED lamps can occur because these devices are typically driven by LED drivers having regulated power supplies that provide regulated current and voltage to the LED lamps from ac power lines. Unless the regulated power supplies that drive the LED lamps are designed to recognize and respond to the voltage signals from Triac dimming circuits in a desirable way, the Triac dimming circuits are likely to produce non-ideal results, such as limited dimming range, flickering, blinking, and/or color shifting in the LED lamps.
The difficulty in using Triac dimming circuits with LED lamps is in part due to a characteristic of the Triac itself. Specifically, a Triac is a semiconductor component that behaves as a controlled ac switch. The Triac behaves as an open switch to an ac voltage until it receives a trigger signal at a control terminal, causing the switch to close. The switch remains closed as long as the current through the switch is above a value referred to as the “holding current.” Most incandescent lamps constantly draw more than the minimum holding current from the ac power source to enable reliable and consistent operation of a Triac. However, the comparably low currents drawn by LEDs from efficient power supplies may not meet the minimum holding currents required to keep the Triac switches conducting for reliable operation. As a result, the Triac may trigger inconsistently. In addition, due to the inrush current charging the input capacitance and because of the relatively large impedance that the LEDs present to the input line, a significant ringing may occur whenever the Triac turns on. This ringing may cause even more undesirable behavior as the Triac current may fall to zero and turn off the string of LEDs, resulting in a flickering effect.
To address these issues, conventional LED driver designs typically rely on current drawn by a dummy load or “bleeder circuit” of the power converter to supplement the current drawn by the LEDs in order to draw a sufficient amount of current even when a portion of the rectified line signal is removed.